Code of Conduct

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To ensure the best possible experience for all members, SPE has established basic guidelines for participation. Please take a moment to read the guidelines.

By joining and using SPE Connect, you agree that you have read and will follow these guidelines. Postings and messages will be deleted if they are considered to be counter to the Terms of Servicepolicy or these guidelines at SPE’s sole discretion.

- To make it easy for you to participate, you can respond directly to a post from your email without navigating to the site. To make this possible, every email provides direct access to your SPE Connect account.

- Do not forward emails from SPE Connect. When you forward SPE Connect emails, you provide the recipient direct access to your account. Be aware and protect your privacy!

SPE Connect vs LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook

- There is a difference between SPE Connect and other SPE social media channels like LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Other social media channels provide information that can be consumed quickly and on a public platform. SPE Connect is intended to be a constantly growing body of knowledge accessible to members only. It is for members to collectively invest, contribute, and build on that body of knowledge for the benefit of the industry as a whole.

Guidelines for Participation

- Be positive, constructive, and respectful. Defamatory, abusive, profane, threatening, offensive, or illegal materials are strictly prohibited. Do not post anything that you would not want the world to see or that you would not want anyone to know came from you.

- Keep your messages succinct. Avoid lengthy and repetitive posts.

- Ensure your posts are relevant to the topic at hand.

- Non-SPE event posts are strictly prohibited.

- Do not post commercial messages on any discussion board, resource library, or other area where others might see it.

- If you are posting about a tool or service that compensates you in any way, you must disclose the nature of your affiliation with said product or service (i.e. ownership stake, employment status, referral commission). We do not discourage sharing your experiences with products and services that compensate you if others can truly benefit, but we do want to ensure that the perspectives shared within SPE Connect are as objective as possible.

- Only geographic and technical sections may post technical/geographic section events on their sites. For further information, speak to the officers of the sections. Do not promote directly on any discussion board.

- Remember that other participants have the right to reproduce postings from this site unless you specify otherwise.

- Post your message or documents only to the most appropriate discussions or libraries. Do not spam several communities with the same message unless it is relevant them. All messages must add to the body of knowledge being shared within that community.

- Head-hunter notices or requests for employment are strictly prohibited.

- If the community is working on a document for SPE purposes, material in that document may be distributed only to the authors, editors, reviewers, and SPE staff working on the project.

- Posting a listing of contact details of the members of any community is strictly prohibited and violates SPE’s Privacy Policy.

- Use caution when discussing products and services. Information posted on the communities and in the libraries is available for members to see, and comments are subject to libel, slander, and antitrust laws.

Discussion Group Etiquette

- State concisely and clearly the topic of your post in the subject line. This allows members to respond more appropriately to your post and makes it easier for members to search the archives by subject.

- Only send a message to the entire community when it contains information that everyone can benefit from.

- Send messages such as "thanks for the information" or "me, too" to individuals – not to the entire community.

- Do not send administrative messages, such as "remove me from the community“. Instead, visit the Technical Discipline section of your SPE.org profile to opt out. If you are changing email addresses, you do not need to remove yourself from the community and rejoin under your new email address. You can simply update your email address in the Contact Information section of your SPE.org profile.

- Students and members restricted by sanctions do not have access to technical communities. Students can visit the Business Management & Leadership Forum or the Student Community. For more information on sanctions, visit our website here.

- This site is provided as a service for the members of SPE. SPE is not responsible for the opinions and information posted on this site by others. SPE disclaims all warranties with regard to information posted on this site, whether posted by SPE or any third party; this disclaimer includes all implied warranties of merchantability and fitness. In no event shall SPE be liable for any special, indirect, or consequential damages or any damages whatsoever resulting from loss of use, data, or profits, arising out of or in connection with the use or performance of any information posted on this site.

- Do not post any defamatory, abusive, profane, threatening, offensive, or illegal materials.

- Do not post any information or other material protected by copyright without the permission of the copyright owner. By posting material, the posting party warrants and represents that he or she owns the copyright with respect to such material or has received permission from the copyright owner. In addition, the posting party grants SPE and users of this site the nonexclusive right and license to display, copy, publish, distribute, transmit, print, and use such information or other material.

- Messages should not be posted if they encourage or facilitate members to arrive at any agreement that either expressly or impliedly leads to price fixing, a boycott of another's business, or other conduct intended to illegally restrict free trade. Messages that encourage or facilitate an agreement about the following subjects are inappropriate: prices, discounts, or terms or conditions of sale; salaries; profits, profit margins, or cost data; market shares, sales territories, or markets; allocation of customers or territories; or selection, rejection, or termination of customers or suppliers.

- SPE does not actively monitor the site for inappropriate postings. For technical communities, member-led Moderating Committees, and other select communities, SPE may initiate the removal of inappropriate postings. With regard to all SPE Connect features, if an inappropriate posting is brought to the attention of SPE, we will take all appropriate action.

- Direct messages sent and received over the SPE Connect network are not accessible by SPE staff. However, they are stored on the server of the host platform in the same way that Google Mail, Yahoo, Hotmail, or any other email provider stores email.

- SPE reserves the right to reject any post for any reason and to terminate access to any user who does not abide by these guidelines.

SPE Trademarks and License

The SPE name and logo and all SPE related trade names, design marks, tag lines and slogans are the Intellectual Property of SPE, and you may not use such without the prior written consent of SPE. All other product and service marks contained herein are the marks of their respective owners and may not be used without the prior written consent of such owners. Nothing contained herein shall be construed as granting to you or any user of this website any license to or ownership rights in any Intellectual Property or other legal right of SPE or any third party.

Intellectual Property Infringement Complaints

SPE prohibits the posting, display, transmission, sharing, emailing, embedding, making available, or otherwise use in this nature of content that infringes the Intellectual Property rights of another person or party. In the event that a third party provides SPE with a notification of any alleged Intellectual Property infringement, SPE may immediately remove such content and may block access to and cancel such user’s registration. In addition, in the event of an alleged copyright infringement, SPE shall act expeditiously in accordance with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) and will take steps to have the allegedly infringing material removed or access to such blocked.

It is SPE policy to respond to notices of alleged copyright infringement that comply with the DMCA. With respect to copyright infringement, the DMCA requires SPE to have a designated agent to receive notices of alleged copyright infringement. For any content that you believe infringes your copyright, please send a written notice of alleged copyright infringement to SPE’s designated agent at the following address:

Your written notification of alleged copyright infringement should include the following information: Identification of the copyrighted work claimed to have been infringed, or if multiple copyrighted works at the website are to be covered by a single notification, a representative list of such works; identification of the material that is claimed to be infringing or to be the subject of infringing activity and that is to be removed or access which is to be disabled, and information reasonably sufficient to permit SPE to locate the material on the website; information reasonably sufficient to permit SPE to contact you, such as an address, telephone number, and an email address at which you may be contacted; a statement that you have a good faith belief that the use of the material in the manner complained of is not authorized by you, your agent, or the law; and a statement that the information in the notification is accurate, and under penalty of perjury, that you are authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed.